Guinea-Pig

Abstract

Cavia cobaya (n=31 + X + Y) In the early days of mammalian genetics, the domestic guinea-pig featured almost as prominently as other laboratory rodents but, latterly, the animal has receded from favour. In spite of several systematic searches for possible linkage among the known mutants, the results have been largely negative. However, even negative results are not devoid of value since these imply that a variety of chromosome segments are tagged by genes. The relatively large number of chromosomes is probably the main determinant in the absence of linkage. Some 25 mutant genes have been described for the guinea-pig if the majority of genes described by Ibsen (1932) are regarded merely as provisioned. Out of the positively recognized mutants, 15 have been employed in investigations for linkage. A recent review is that of Robinson (1970).

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